Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Females + Last Will and Testament

Last week I was speaking at the Regina Public Library on our Mystery Women and the challenges they present. I was able to show a myriad of examples of record types that reveal our mystery women using their maiden surnames. It is true that we often follow the males to find the females, but there are buckets of records available detailing our female ancestors simply by following ALL the collateral family members. One of the more interesting record types (for any kind of research) is a person's last will and testament. William Shakespeare died 23 April 1616. He left a three page will in which he says ‘I gyve unto my wief my second best bed with the furniture’. So now I wonder who got the best bed? If you want to read his, and other celebrities, final documents for free, go to http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/prob1wills.asp Happy Searching! Pat

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